Today’s complex, interconnected IT infrastructure requires IT Asset Management (ITAM) to monitor physical and virtual assets. Often overlooked as a purely operational function, ITAM is crucial for cybersecurity. With the rise of cloud services, IoT devices, and remote work, unmanaged assets pose significant risks that could lead to significant financial loss, data compromise, or regulatory trouble.
The NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide highlights that without centralized control, complex IT infrastructure makes it difficult for cybersecurity professionals to assess vulnerabilities, respond to threats quickly, and evaluate risk accurately.
That’s where ITAM steps in. When done right, it bridges the gap between your security and IT teams, enabling everyone to address vulnerabilities and take proactive measures more effectively.
How Poor ITAM Affects Your Security Posture
If your ITAM practices are lacking, you deny your security teams the visibility they need to identify risks, respond to incidents effectively, and maintain compliance with security regulations.
IT assets come in various forms, both physical and virtual — and any gaps in ITAM can leave you vulnerable to cybersecurity risks, including:
Data theft and leakage: Unpatched, untracked, or forgotten assets are cyberthieves magnets. These devices might hold sensitive, plain data making them easy pickings.
Ransomware attacks: Inadequate ITAM can let unpatched devices stay on your network, making you vulnerable to ransomware attacks. These attacks can cause costly disruptions to operations and data loss. Assets without regular updates or security patches are prime targets for such threats.
Failure to address end-of-life systems: Without a solid ITAM solution, it’s challenging to detect assets with software that no longer receive updates, patches, or support from vendors. This create invisible weak spots and prevent your team from deploying timely upgrades or replacements. According to CIS, most cyberattacks exploit “poor cyber hygiene” like unpatched software, poor configuration management, and outdated solutions.
Shadow IT and rogue devices: When your employees use unauthorized, unregistered devices, they create hidden entry points for breaches. These Shadow IT devices often lack essential security controls, making them at high risk for internal threats or data exfiltration. Shockingly, a Deloitte survey found that 72% of companies struggle to detect unauthorized devices with their current ITAM solutions.
Repurposing dormant assets: Even seemingly insignificant assets can cause serious damage if left unmanaged. For instance, subdomains tied to deprecated assets are vulnerable to subdomain hijacking. A USENIX study of major domains (including CNN, NIH, and Harvard) found that 83% of compromised sites were due to abandoned third-party services, with 17% left vulnerable by expired domains. When hijacked, attackers can host malicious content, reroute traffic, or impersonate the organization, leveraging its credibility for phishing and other malicious activities.
Insider threats: Employees might have access to assets with sensitive data they don’t need for their roles. This increases the risk of data theft or leaks. Human error, like failing to disable access after an employee leaves or simply accidental data sharing, is a common culprit. In fact, IBM found that human error accounts for 95% of cybersecurity breaches.
Poor compliance management: Your organization should be audit-ready and risk-avoidant at all times. Poor management of IT assets can result in non-compliance with industry regulations standards, software licenses, and data privacy frameworks. All this could lead to penalties and legal challenges. For example, in Europe, failing to adhere to GDPR can result in fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global revenue.
Why IT Asset Management (ITAM) Is Important To Cybersecurity
You can’t secure what you can’t see. This phrase hits the core of why ITAM is indispensable for a strong cybersecurity posture.
In a digital ecosystem filled with countless devices, software applications, cloud services, and data points, tracking your assets is a challenge — but worth it. Strong ITAM brings much-needed transparency to your complex IT environment. It gives you a better understanding of what’s on your attack surface by ensuring every asset is tracked and accounted for.
A recent Deloitte survey polled over 3,500 IT professionals worldwide. The results were eye-opening: 84% admitted they lack an effective ITAM initiative. Even more telling, 77% agreed that a solid ITAM program is crucial for strong cybersecurity.
Creates a Detailed IT Asset Inventory
To secure a house, you should know where its doors and windows are. Likewise, ITAM helps you map out every device, software, and access point within your organization. By providing continuous asset discovery, risk assessment, and monitoring, ITAM enables your IT team to:
- Identify all assets, both on-premises and in the cloud
- Track asset location, condition, ownership, and more
- Categorize assets by operational criticality and risk
- Maintain up-to-date records of software licenses and hardware warranties
A strong ITAM should guide your security team to threats with pinpoint precision. By day’s end, as NIST suggests, it should empower you to answer questions like, “What software versions are our devices running?” and “Which devices are susceptible to the latest vulnerabilities?”
Identifies and Reduce Shadow IT
Shadow IT refers to any software or hardware used without IT’s approval, which can weaken your organization’s security posture. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 75% of employees will use technology outside of IT’s control — compared to just 41% in 2022.
A proper ITAM solution keeps you on top of everything in real time so every asset is closely monitored and secured. This visibility empowers your team to identify unauthorized devices. Furthermore, Cisa recommends maintaining policies to ensure unauthorized devices aren’t connected to IT and OT assets in the first place.
Secures IT Offboarding
Without robust ITAM, IT offboarding processes can lead to insider threats and data leaks. For example, offboarding employees or third-party users could miss reclaiming company-owned devices with access to business data. Sounds like a rare occurrence? Shockingly, research has found that 31% of former employees retained access to company SaaS. Another report revealed that 87% of departing employees admit to taking data they created, while 28% take data created by others
A detailed ITAM system streamlines IT offboarding, secures asset returns, and revokes access permissions automatically, safeguarding business data.
Third-Party Users Risk Management
Comprehensive ITAM solutions keep a close eye on third-party users like partners, contractors, and guests. According to research, 50% of organizations don’t monitor third-party users, and over 70% were compromised due to excessive privileged access granted to them. This goes to show the importance of closely monitoring third parties while accessing critical assets such as networks, hardware, SaaS, and databases.
Furthermore, IAITAM suggests documenting session logs for third-party partners. This way, you can spot any anomalous behavior and have proof if there’s ever a breach.
Efficient Resource Allocation, Faster Incident Response
Asset categorization is a cornerstone of cybersecurity best practices, underscored by frameworks like NIST and CIS Controls. ITAM can help with that — by classifying assets based on business value and data sensitivity, you get a clear view for resource allocation. Understanding each asset’s criticality allows your team to respond quickly to security alerts. This approach improves decision-making for cybersecurity efforts, ensuring high-risk assets get priority in updates, maintenance, and security adjustments — especially during a breach.
Advanced Threat Detection and Response
The perfect ITAM integration ensures accurate and up-to-date visibility into your IT assets. This is a critical prerequisite for integrating solutions for endpoint security like Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP).
Such security tools depend on precise ITAM data to function effectively. When done right, your IT team can monitor assets for unusual behavior in real time. If something gets noticed, like suspicious access attempts or sudden spikes in data transfer, your security team can quickly investigate and neutralize potential risks before any damage occurs.
Get Help Integrating ITAM
Effective ITAM is crucial for security, but integrating it with existing workflows can be a challenge. Teqtivity’s experience and cutting-edge solutions can bridge the gap between IT and security teams, providing a unified view of assets tailored to your organization’s needs. Talk to us today and see how we can help you manage your IT assets and stay ahead of threats.